Busted

Sunday was a beautiful day at Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove. The ocean was calm, clear, and turquoise blue and the sun was shining. Divers were going out  and coming in with smiles, chatting about the excellent conditions. Families were scattered across the sand as parents monitored children playing in surf and jumping off the cement walkway. I was standing out on the walkway watching kids jump into the water and waiting for a pair of Scuba Squad divers to come in so I could get an “okay” from them. Looking down in the water, something caught my attention. It was a white buoy with about ten dead fish attached. As I was trying to figure out how the buoy could have killed the fish, my divers came swimming in. After getting their “okay” I pointed down to the dead fish. One of the divers, who is also a spear fisherman and whom we will call The Neoprene Crusader, went over and looked. He pulled his head out of the water and without hesitation said, “That is so illegal.” It was then I realized what was going on. The fish were the catch of a spear fisherman, and, while normally our response would be “great catch, dude,” on the east side of Lover’s (where we were) it is illegal to catch anything. Our conversation caught the attention of a man and what looked to be his grown son standing near on the walkway. The Neoprene Crusader yelled, “Are these your fish?” The man said they were his and when The Neoprene Crusader informed him of his illegal move the man began to defend himself (in not the most polite way).

The Neoprene Crusader and his buddy, whom we will call Nemo, got out of the water and headed up the walkway, but before he left he asked me to take some pictures of the situation. I got pictures of the fish, the men, and their spearfishing gear. By the time I was done The Neoprene Crusader was already back, still in his wetsuit but with his cell phone to his ear. Seeing what was happening the two men hurriedly packed up and began walking toward the parking lot in their wetsuits and with their yellow gear bags. The Neoprene Crusader and I followed. We trailed the two men to the parking lot where they met up with a woman, but realizing we were still behind them they all continued through the parking lot and up 17th Street. We followed. The Neoprene Crusader was having some trouble getting Fish and Game on the phone. We were determined to get a license plate so even if they eluded us they could be found. We walked a few blocks up 17th and then the woman turned around and headed back toward the beach. We walked a bit further and The Neoprene Crusader said I could go on back but that he’d be willing to follow them for miles. I agreed because I wanted to check in with the rest of the divers.

I headed back toward the beach, but on my way past the parking lot I got curious. Where had the woman who was with them gone? I walked through the parking lot, and low and behold, there she was getting into a car. I took down the make, model, and license plate number. When I got back to the divers everyone was curious as to what was going on. When they heard the situation they agreed with the cause and wanted to help. I asked Nemo for The Neoprene Crusader’s phone number and  texted the car identification information to him. Shortly after, The Neoprene Crusader called and said he had gotten ahold of Fish and Game and he was headed back toward the beach. I of course thought that meant the chase was over, but I was wrong. The two men had split up and The Neoprene Crusader was following the one with the fish, who was now booking it back to Lover’s West.

With this information another member of Scuba Squad, whom we will call Harbor Seal, went off to scout out the situation as they came down 17th. We watched, and no sooner had he headed off, when here comes the man with his yellow gear bag with The Neoprene Crusader a few blocks behind. Harbor Seal fell in on the other side of the street so now both men were in pursuit. The man with the yellow pack headed down the steps to Lover’s West. While passing the parking lot for, The Neoprene Crusader noticed the game warden’s truck parked but the wildlife officer was not in it. He told Harbor Seal to watch the guy to make sure he did not dump the fish. He ran off, still in his wetsuit, to find the officer. Harbor Seal, in Brad Pitt/Ocean’s Eleven fashion with sunglasses and all, leaned against the rock wall and covertly peered over the edge to keep an eye on the culprit. The Neoprene Crusader located the officer and, with the three of us being witnesses and the pictures I had taken, the guy was so busted. The officer brought him over to his truck and not long after the other man came over to share in the punishment. The men were charged $500 per fish and threatened with jail time. They walked away with a $5000 fine.   

I left the beach that day very proud of the group effort made by Scuba Squad members. Rules are in place for a reason. Whether you agree with the rules, of course, is completely up to you, but if you choose to not be amenable to them you risk the consequences. Do not mess with Scuba Squad.     

That Feels Nice

Central Coast divers these past few weeks may have noticed something different and unusual. It probably wasn’t something that hit you right away, but was perhaps a slow dawning. First you probably noticed your fingers or toes were not tingling with cold, or that your head felt a little too warm, and then maybe you considered the idea of diving without your gloves or hood. These factors would have caused you to look down at your computer and to see the temperature was a shocking 60-something degrees.

On July 23 the buoys in Monterey recorded the highest-ever ocean temperature in the time period since 1987 when records began being kept. The temperature was 68 degrees Fahrenheit, which is crazy when the average temperature diving in Monterey is in the mid-50s. If you talk with fisherman you will find it is not uncommon to have warmer ocean temperatures a ways out in the bay because we have a warm surface current coming up from the south that passes by in deeper water, but the temperature closer to shore is always significantly colder. The change in water temperature close to shore has been attributed to the missing northwest winds that generate the cold-water upwelling. The winds push the warmer surface water away, which causes colder water to replace it. When these winds are not present the warm surface water does not move and is not replaced by colder water. I keep hearing these temperatures cannot last long and the winds will return soon, but it has been nearly a month now and last weekend divers reported temperatures at 63 degrees.

The warm water is nice for divers but the marine life is not used to these temperatures. Creatures that require a cold environment will not stick around very long if they can move to colder water that is closer to their normal natural environment. Animals that do not have the ability to travel will adapt or die, which is a scary proposition. The health of the ocean depends on the normal cycles and when they change for long period of time the animals cannot keep up. Personally, I love the warmer temperatures. I tend to get cold and it has been extremely nice the past couple of weeks to be able to do hour-long dives and not get cold at all, but this drastic change does not come without consequences.   

Buddy Love

The equipment you use must be in good working order, the dive site conditions must be safe to enter, your goals for the dive must be set and your training must compliment your goals. These are all elements to consider when it comes to planning a safe and fun dive. If all of these considerations are met then you have a good start, but there is another aspect that is extremely important and I feel, sometimes, is over-looked: you must have a safe and compatible dive buddy. Not having a safe and compatible person to dive with can be anywhere from inconvenient, if you and your buddy do not have similar objectives for the dive which causes your dive to be an unenjoyable experience, to outright dangerous, if that person does not have safe diving practices.

I have been lucky in my dive lifetime because I currently have a wonderful dive buddy and have dove with great buddies in the past, but I have heard the horror stories about buddies who are not so lovely. One buddy-related issue I have heard many times is the “buddy” being too focused on his or her own agenda to be a valuable partner. This situation either ends in the diver spending the whole dive trying to keep up with said “buddy” or it ends in the loss of said “buddy” and, in the best situation, a successful lost buddy procedure and, in the worst situation, an unnecessary search for a diver who was not in need of rescue but who failed to noticed their buddy was gone. The most recent story I heard involved a diver partnering up with two other divers to form a trio. When the diver became low on air, which means all divers should go to the surface, she was sent to the surface to then struggle alone in a monster current back to the shore. I had these stories in mind when, last Sunday, I was helping to couple up divers into buddy pairs.

Last Sunday was this month’s Scuba Squad club dive and I was part of beach support. At club dives, if a diver arrives without a buddy we help them pair up. Scuba Squad is an excellent resource because all of the members are safe divers so there is no risk of pairing a diver up with someone who is reckless, but you can never be sure the two divers will be compatible. All of the necessary considerations were met and everyone seemed to enjoy the dive, but it was difficult to tell, just by observing, if buddy satisfaction had been achieved. After the dive, while reading Facebook comments, Cheryl said, “There is a lovefest going on on Facebook.” I asked her what she was talking about and she said everyone who had gone diving that day was posting comments saying how much he or she enjoyed diving with his or her buddy. This, above all else, confirmed for me that the club dive was a success, because even if your equipment is working great, conditions are perfect, and your dive goals are met, loving your buddy is the best way to ensure a great dive day.  

If it looks cool, I’m sold.

Some guys want a pure black wetsuit in all SCUBAPRO fashion and some want a yellow stripe here and there, and some girls want a reg that can be fitted with a purple cover plate or that has a colored shiny finish and some girls want “a stealth, rugged, nylon fiberglass case and a dark anodized aluminum ring.” I have been working at Pro Scuba for about two months now and there is one thing, in particular, I have noticed. Despite Dave’s advice in his basic scuba courses, that fit and comfort should be your prime concern when choosing gear, color and style are what really hook someone on a product. A customer will find a mask that has zero gaps, hits all the right places on his or her face, and seals nicely on an inhale, but the fact that it comes in a black and bronze frame with a mirrored lens is the clincher. I’m not saying they will throw the fit and comfort rule out the window but they might choose the second best fitting mask or wait a week for the preferred color to come in over just choosing a neutral mask.

At the shop we just got in the new G260 Tactical second stage and, as you may have gathered from the name, it is just cool. It has all the incredible features of the normal G260, including the air balanced valve, diver adjustable inhalation effort, diver adjustable VIVA, superflow hose, super comfort high flow mouthpiece, and the left/right hose attachment that the techies love. Those components mean you will have the maximum air availability at maximum depth and can customize as needed, which is what you want as a diver. But, here is what got my attention: it has a stealth, rugged, nylon fiberglass case and a dark anodized aluminum ring and a stealth design knob and nut. Those elements mean it is strong and abrasion resistant, but from the moment I heard the word “stealth” I had to see what it looked like. It did not disappoint; with its black nylon fiberglass case and anodized aluminum ring it epitomizes _________. If James Bond were going to choose a regulator it would be this. It also has the added bonus of coming with the swivel attachment, which means as you move your head you are not inhibited by your regulator hose, and that attachment on its own costs over $150. I thought I held true to choosing gear based on Dave’s rule of fit and comfort, but I must say this regulator proved me wrong. If it looks cool, I’m sold.  

There is a Phenomenon Surrounding Divers

If your sport is basketball you can pretty much play at any time and not have an increased risk associated. The rain could be pelting down and yes, you would get wet and you might have to watch your footing a bit more to avoid slipping, but it isn’t any more life- threatening to play basketball in the rain as it is to play with blue skies. Basketball does not require you to monitor the weather days before you go to the court to be sure it is a good b-ball day. The same can be said for the majority of sports. I have watched football games on TV being played in blizzards and the players seem to be having a blast. They slip and slide around a bit, but the game goes on without any more injuries than is normal for the sport. There is no such thing as frequent days where you cannot go play football or basketball because if you did you would put your life in jeopardy.

This is not the case with diving. Our fun is at the mercy of the ocean and, by extension, the weather. It would be nice if the ocean cooperated and was always flat, calm, and clear and if the weather was always mild, but that is not how it works. I would be willing to bet most divers have CDIP or some similar site bookmarked on their computer and that the weather channel website shows up frequently in their search history. We all know the routine of refreshing the CDIP page on a daily basis hoping the green seas that indicate seven to fourteen foot swells will somehow magically go back to that deep dark blue color we all love. Some days are better than others for diving. There are days when you just plain cannot dive because of the rough ocean and the inclement weather, and if you did get in the water you would be risking serious injury.

Sunday was one of those poor dive days. I had been watching the charts all week hoping green would become blue but I had no such luck. The dive was scheduled for Point Lobos, which is normally an absolutely gorgeous location. It is one of the favorites of Central and Northern California divers because it often has great visibility and the marine life tends to be huge because Point Lobos is a marine reserve. It was going to be a treat to be able to do a boat dive at Lobos because we could dive sites that are inaccessible from shore without a kayak. We arrived at the site and the water was green and murky inside Whalers Cove, which is where you enter the water and swim out to the boat which then takes you to locations around the perimeter of the reserve. On the outside of the cove waves were crashing against the rocks and sending spray into the air twice the height of the rock. Hoping the appearance of the ocean was deceiving and we would descend into some calm, we all swam out to the boat and rode around to Blue Fish Cove. In the past month or so there have been a number of videos of the four Giant Pacific Octopuses who have taken up residency in Blue Fish, and so we were all quite hopeful we would have a run-in with one. Members of the group were starting to turn as green as the ocean with the rocking of the boat so we jumped in almost immediately after the boat anchored. The depths were calmer than the surface and the visibility was about fifteen feet, but the life seemed to have fled the rocking seas. We saw a number of jellyfish, a monstrous cabezon, and a few pretty nudibranch but nothing like the normal menagerie of Lobos. It was a chilly forty-minute dive and then we found ourselves back on the boat. 

Despite these conditions, Sunday was great and I believe everyone left happy. We had a fun group of divers, a helpful boat crew, and we were able to get in safely, and that is all it takes. It is thrilling to have an amazing dive day but there is a phenomenon surrounding divers and that is this: we like to be in the water. The visibility can be terrible and the water freezing and the life nonexistent and we would still be happier in the water than out of it.

There Was No Escaping, Or So I Thought

The 55-degree water began its assault on my booties, slowly creeping into the cavity around each foot. As I walked in further, the ocean continued pressing its way into my wetsuit. It started at the bottom, filling to the top as I got deeper. When my hands were in they too felt the cold sneak in around each finger. The water slinked in through the edges of my hood, trickling down my neck. Pretty soon I was surrounded, with my eyes behind my mask being the only dry portion of my body. My wetsuit, boots, and gloves fought a hard battle to keep the water out, and succeeded to a certain degree, but there was no escaping the water once I was submerged in it, or so I thought.

I descended into the chilly depths wondering why I purposefully plunge myself into this inhospitable environment, but then I remembered. The sun was shining down through the kelp bouncing light around like dancing water sprites. Rockfish were nestled in their crevices surrounded by strawberry anemone. Nudibranch with their vivid colors clung to the rocks. Every once in a while a ling cod with it’s prehistoric-looking fins would swim off and alight on a rock far enough away from me to feel safe. An adorable harbor seal darted around pretending he wasn’t interested in what I was doing in his habitat. Jellyfish swayed with the water and drifted off with the tides. Every time I brave the cold I am rewarded with a look into a world where I don’t biologically belong. I get to see creatures that are accessible to some people only through the glass of an aquarium. The cold is a lingering thought throughout every dive, but it is drowned by the excitement of getting to be a mermaid for an hour.

Last Saturday I went with Dan and Alison, who are both Training Assistants at Pro Scuba Dive Center, to the DUI Drysuit Demo at Breakwater. Imagine my surprise when I was waist- deep in the ocean and was toasty. Coddled in a fleece onesie and protected by a trilaminate outersuit I was completely dry and warm. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out my buoyancy, as I was now essentially one big air bubble, but, as it was at first with a BC, I’m sure with practice it would get easier. Drysuit diving was a completely new experience from what I associate with scuba diving in Monterey Bay.     

Most of my diving experiences in Monterey and Carmel have been similar to the one I described. The sights are stunning and the marine life is amazing so I deal with the cold. I have gotten used to that refreshing shock of 55-degree water seeping into my booties. The cold is a necessary evil to see the beauty that can be found diving on the central coast, or so I thought.

Diving in 1970

Can you imagine paying $44.95 for a custom made wetsuit? In the 1970 May issue of Skin Diver Magazine you could find an ad and order form to buy a custom wetsuit with a jacket and pants for $44.95 from Central Skindivers. Wetsuits 44 years ago were two pieces held together with a diaper-esque flap attaching the two pieces with rivets in the front. Underwater cameras were really booming and the majority of the new diving products for that year were camera-related. Products included the “Hydro-Blitz” underwater strobe system and an all- aluminum housing for the Kodak K-100 camera. As of February 1970, NAUI was just coming out with a “new plastic embossed certification card.” It was “blue and gold with a full color NAUI Qualified Scuba Diver crest and embossed with the diver’s name, total scuba course hours, date of certification, NAUI registration number and the instructor’s NAUI number.” The BCD as we know it did not exist. The popular buoyancy compensator also known as a “horse collar” resembled the life jackets on airplanes that slip over your head, only with these you did not “pull firmly on the tabs to inflate” because they had to be manually inflated. Tanks were fastened to a metal plate attached to your back similar, in some ways, to technical diving rigs now but with no padding or added floatation. The newest speargun, the S.M.G. Mark II, was just being released. The advertisement read “some people still think you need rubber bands for underwater power . . . some people still think Columbus was wrong!” This speargun used “sub-ammo” instead of rubber band power. All of the masks pictured in the magazine had a circular frame that covered most of your face, giving the fish a great view of your forehead. It was an interesting world of scuba diving in the 1970s . . .        

            Technology makes our diving experience much easier and, more importantly, safer than diving in the 1970s. Wetsuits are extremely comfortable and universal to the point most people do not need to order a custom suit. Plus, they are much more stylish with the removal of the diaper. Underwater cameras have evolved significantly. They are much smaller and more streamlined (you could fit five GoPros in the aluminum housing for the Kodak K-100) and offer more settings than you could possibly ever use. I do not know anyone who manually inflates his or her BC. That is a component reserved for if your gear malfunctions. We maintain our buoyancy with the push of a button, and the technology exists to make a BCD that inflates and deflates on its own, depending on your orientation in the water. Spear guns are still extremely popular but personally I never hear the word “sub-ammo” used to describe their power. Masks are fitted and cover the correct part of your face, leaving your eyes centered in the mask and your forehead off display. Feel lucky divers of the 21st century; diving these days, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty darn easy.   

GoTravel

          I firmly believe, if done correctly, traveling to a different country or just across the US is as valuable a learning experience as my sixteen years of schooling. Granted, it is a different set of lessons, but they are no less important. I love to travel and it is one of my goals in life to see as much of the world as I can. Traveling is part of the sport of scuba diving. As much as I love diving Monterey and Carmel, the travel junkie in me is always longing to enter bodies of water I have not encountered yet. A group from Scuba Squad was in Roatan this week and I could not be more jealous looking at their photos and videos.
           I just started reading a book Sky gave me for my birthday titled “Off Track Planet’s Travel Guide for the Young, Sexy,and Broke.” This is not the only travel book I have read but, as you may have noticed from the title, this one is quite different. The book is informative and interesting, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny at times and not for the easily offended. One of the most valuable lessons in this book can be found in the introduction. The authors outline the six most common excuses people have for not traveling and why their excuses are lame.
           The first excuse I feel is particularly relevant is “I can’t afford it” (Planet, 2013). The authors refute this excuse by saying if that is the case, redefine what it means to travel. If you are a broke newly-graduated student such as myself, the most expensive thing you buy should be your plane ticket because “you can learn everything about tango in Buenos Aires, catch some good karma at the Chao Phraya temples in Bangkok, and get crispy brown at clothing-optional Greek beaches- all for free.” Another excuse I know I have heard is “no one will understand the words that are coming out of my mouth” (Planet, 2013). To this the authors say, “you can resort back to your baby body language in foreign territory and get by fine” (Planet, 2013). They also say if you speak English you can be pretty sure, in most places you go, someone will probably be able to understand you somewhat. The last excuse I want to mention is “I don’t have the time” (Planet, 2013). This is an excuse I have used in the past and I like the authors’ counter. They say “add up your morning commute, time on Facebook, and those days you’re just too bored with life to get out of bed. What does that equal?” (Planet, 2013). Wouldn’t you rather be in Roatan than sitting in your car on your way to work or in bed on Facebook? It is not that I do not have time to travel, it is that I have not prioritized my time in order to make it happen. These are just three of the excuses this book debunks. After reading the intro I feel I have no valid reasons to not make my goal of traveling the world continue.

Planet, E. of O. T. (2013). Off Track Planet’s Travel Guide for the Young, Sexy, and Broke. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press.

How much do we know about our dive gear?

We all use our dive gear on a regular basis, but how much do we really know about each piece? I attended a SCUBAPRO Product Knowledge Seminar hosted by Joe, who is the Northwest Regional Representative, and an Intro to Tech Workshop hosted by René, who is the SCUBAPRO Technical Training Manager. The seminars were both incredibly interesting and valuable. They were animated, informational, and efficient, and Joe and René kept our attention using the occasional interjection of humor. I really enjoyed that both of these very knowledgeable professionals made staying in my chair rather challenging during parts of the seminar because I was laughing so hard.

The Product Knowledge Seminar gave SCUBAPRO dealers and their employees an opportunity to learn more about SCUBAPRO products and policies, as well as obtain resources for their dive facilities. We got to see the new SCUBAPRO MK25/S600 with the deep blue PVD finish, which is a gorgeous, balanced regulator with guaranteed high scratch and corrosion resistance, as well as other new products such as SCUBAPRO’s Evertec LT drysuit and Litehawk BC. Joe passed these items around the room so we could all take a closer look. Everyone chuckled when Joe warned us that everything, even the mask, fins and wetsuits, were all “non-working display models.” It was very exciting and interesting to see and learn more about the new gear released in 2014 and to get a preview of some new equipment for the upcoming year of 2015.

The Intro to Tech workshop gave anyone in the dive industry who is interested in dive technology the opportunity to disassemble the components of a regulator system and an Air II and then reassemble them. We were also educated about the technical features and care for dive equipment such as the assorted valves and connectors present on the BC. It was an excellent chance to better understand how the gear operates and see if you might want to pursue a job as a technician in a dive shop. For every technical piece of information René gave us, he also added in a story to illustrate his point. The most memorable anecdote was one to demonstrate that every piece of equipment is tested rigorously to be sure it will not malfunction, even under the most bizarre conditions. René recounted his visit to a SCUBAPRO factory in Italy; he was walking through and came across a man testing a first stage on a motorized apparatus. The machinery was secured to the hoses, spreading them apart and lifting the tank attached to the them into the air. When René came into the room the tank was pulled up to a height above his head. Taken aback by this abusive test of the gear, he asked why it was being tested in this way. The man replied in a thick Italian accent (René does great impressions), "we must think of all of the stupidities of the diver" and he was testing it because this is how divers drag their tanks from the ocean onto the boat. René told us to this day he has never seen anyone drag a tank by the hose onto a boat. Regardless, it is nice to know our gear is tested against stupidities. 

I highly recommend the SCUBAPRO Product Knowledge Seminar and Intro to Tech Workshop not only because it is fun and interesting, but because Joe and René are fantastic instructors and very entertaining

The Show

From one point of view, the Open Ocean exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium might look like a tank full of fish, but from another viewpoint it looks like this:

It was noticeable, just from the behavior of the fish, something was about to happen. I felt like I was standing at the top of the lawn at Shoreline Amphitheatre, watching the crowd as they waited for a show to begin. The Mahi Mahi turned a brilliant sunset gold, like the pretty high school girls who look good even when they aren’t dressed up but, who layer on the sparkly make-up and don their highest heels for a special occasion. They zoomed along, cutting the surface of the water just as the high school girls would cut through the pit to the front of the crowd, because no one minds a pretty young girl bumpin’ up against them. The two Hammerhead Sharks were swimming ovals around the back of the tank just as the hot high school guys would walk along the back of the pit, wanting to follow the girls, but knowing it wouldn’t be as easy for them to make it through the crowd.

The rays were lying on the bottom of the tank just like the slightly older girls at the concert who have less to prove than the high schoolers and would rather lay out a blanket on the lawn than be jarred around and have beer spilled on them in the pit. Similarly, the White Tipped Shark was swimming close to the bottom of the tank like the slightly older guys who have been to many shows before and know it isn’t worth it to push your way to the front, because you get a better view if you stay up near the seats anyway.

The bait ball reminded me of the kids up on the lawn who do not really understand what is going on but who feel the growing excitement and can’t help but run around and around and around . . . The Mola Mola was all over the tank, disappearing and then reappearing on the opposite side, kind of like the bizarre hippy lady who wanders around the amphitheater and seems completely harmless, but who you prefer to stay away from regardless. The Tuna were the security guards, big and in charge and not afraid to jump into the fray.